Mark of the Witch is a rambling mood piece that insists the viewer put in a lot of work for marginal payoff.

Jordyn (Paulie Redding) is a young woman on the verge of adulthood. Having been raised by her a kindly Aunt Ruth (Nancy Wolfe), she has never known her parents, much less where she came from. On her eighteenth birthday, Aunt Ruth makes an ominous declaration while serving up the cake.  She then begins to stab herself in the stomach with a large knife.

Shaken by her caretaker’s attempted suicide, Jordyn is now paranoid, constantly looking over her shoulder. She soon realizes she is being pursued by a malevolent supernatural force, a hatchet-faced witch, (Maria Olsen) who follows Jordyn everywhere she goes and is ready to initiate Jordyn into some coven of witches. Not knowing where she come from, she soon begins to learn far more than she is prepared to discover.

Jordyn, you in danger girl.

Mark of the Witch, made in 2014 and previously titled Another, is an ambitious and ambiguous psychological thriller.  The film takes more than it’s fair share of the viewer’s time with long, methodical, meditative shots of it’s subjects giving the overall proceedings a monotonous sense of lethargy. Like the plodding witchcraft ceremony that obtusely opens the film, we watch the mildly interesting imagery for hints of action or direction but little happens.

Jason Bognacki‘s film is a strange creature. There are many things that it gets right but just as many things that fall short. It is deliberately paced to create a nightmarish, otherworldly feel but then it never seems to take advantage of the restraint by serving up visual allegory. It is a very psychological horror film, yet it has punctuations of violence that would appeal to a different audience. The film actually looks great, with some nice editing work thrown in for good measure, but then it uses hackneyed special effects that wouldn’t convince a blind person.

This is an ambitious film, not necessarily a good one. It is a slow piece that aims to play with your head, but occasionally it loses your attention.